A video recording made on December 14, 2013 of Dr. Yusuf al-Burhami, a leading cleric in Egypt’s Salafi movement, was recently publicized on Arabic media due to its controversial nature.
In the video, Burhami says that “Destroying churches is permissible—as long as the destruction does not bring harm to Muslims, such as false claims that Muslims are persecuting Christians leading to [foreign] occupations. He further added that “the reason we agree to their being built, via the article in the constitution dealing with worship, and the reason we do not collect the jizya from the Christians, is because the condition of Muslims in the current era is well known to the nations of the world—they are weak and their deteriorating among the people.
Burhami went on to explain that, when the Arab Muslims first conquered Egypt in the 7th century, the ancient nation was Christian and because the Muslims were few in number, Coptic Christian churches were allowed to remain—“just as the prophet allowed the Jews to remain in Khaibar after it he opened it, but once Muslims grew in strength and number, Omar al-Khattab drove them out according to the prophet’s command, “Drive out the Jews and Christians from the Peninsula.”